


Things the stars know

by beamirang



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Episode Tag, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 14:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18501016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beamirang/pseuds/beamirang
Summary: When Alex finds him, Michael hasn't slept in two days.“I close my eyes and that’s all I see. I can hear them screaming - I - it won’t stop, I can’t-“Post 1.12 hurt/comfort





	Things the stars know

**Author's Note:**

> HAHAHAHAHAA SO I'M BROKEN.
> 
> This is a SHAMELESSLY self-indulgent excuse for h/c because of all the things I can't handle, Michael NOT getting a hug is distressingly close to the top of the pile.

Michael’s never been one to hide. He might retreat to a safe place, but he makes no secret of it. Alex never has to go looking for him. That doesn't mean he likes what he finds.

“Have you slept at all?”

The answer is evident in the dark circles that hang under raw, bloodshot eyes. He's still wearing the same clothes, still wearing the same thousand-yard stare Alex has seen too many times to stomach it in the eyes of someone he loves.

He's sprawled on the ground in front of a fire that's long died out, shivering and miserable and broken. Alex has respected his demand for solitude long enough. Too long, perhaps, but selfishly it’s taken him longer than he cares to admit to figure out exactly _how_ he’s going to look Michael in the eye again, knowing the true extent of the pain Alex’s family has inflicted on his.

“Can’t,” Michael slurs. He stinks of whiskey and acetone from several paces away, sickly and acidic.

Moving to the fire, Alex quickly builds it back up again, busying himself with the flames. He understands instinctually why Michael’s not inside the airstream, despite the cold: he’s not sure he wants to be confined to such a small space after seeing those cells. It’s enough to climb in and quickly retrieve a blanket.

“You need sleep, Guerin,” he says, trying to be as straightforwardly gentle as he can be. There’s a massive part of him that’s screaming to disconnect, to force a buffer of professional distance between himself and the man sprawled on the ground. He’s talked more than one traumatized man back off the ledge. He knows the right things to say and do and be.

But this is Michael and his pain has a direct line to Alex’s heart. Standard operating procedures will never be adequate.

“I watched one of those alien conspiracy things when I was a kid. Autopsies and shit.” There’s only hollow emptiness behind his eyes. It’s not permanent. The hurt is still there, buried so deep by alcohol and drugs that numbness can almost pass as an absence of pain.

Alex collects bottles both empty and half full and moves them out of sight. “Why would you do that?” he asks, his heart breaking for a child who never had a chance to survive the world unscarred.

Michael shrugs and almost ends up falling onto his side. “Morbid curiosity,” he says mockingly. New flames dance in his glassy eyes and fresh tears fall. “You think they did that to her?”

“Guerin-“ it’s impossible not to drown in the pain Michael’s projecting in waves. For all that Isobel is the psychic of the group, there are times Alex swears Michael has some kind of empathic power. When he hurts, that hurt tears a hole in Alex’s heart.

“I close my eyes and that’s all I see,” Michael chokes, his face pleading for something Alex can never return to him. “I can hear them screaming - I - it won’t stop, I can’t-“

Alex hits his knees so hard it sends a spike of agony shooting up his hip. It barely registers in the face of Michael’s grief.

Hauling Michael into his arms is harder than it should be - he’s boneless, drunk and clumsily uncooperative, flinching away from Alex’s hands even as he claws at his jacket, trying to cling with stiff, swollen fingers.

Alex manages to put his back to the crate Michael was leaning on and draws his knees up, creating a space for Michael to lean back against his chest. It’s awkward, tangled up in so many limbs, but eventually, he’s able to wrap the blanket around them both.

“You need to sleep, Guerin,” he says again, his voice a whisper against Michael’s ear. “You’re caught in a trauma cycle, but I’m gonna help, okay?”

Falling limply against Alex’s shoulder, Micheal twists his head and looks up pleadingly through a wild tangle of dirty curls. Tomorrow, Alex is taking him back to the cabin and getting him cleaned up.

Tonight…

“Close your eyes,” Alex tells him. He has no doubt Michael will do as he’s told, not when he’s looking at Alex like his face is the only thing keeping from hurtling head first into the abyss. Still, he flinches, fresh horrors and long unhealed wounds trying to claw at him and drag him under.

Alex reaches under the blanket and puts one hand over Michael’s heart. The other he lays gently over fluttering, twitching eyes. “Just listen to my voice,” he says. “And if you get scared or lost, tap my arm: I’ll come find you.”

“Alex-“

“Shush,” he soothes, “just my voice, Guerin. I’m right here. I won’t leave you. Do you remember Salt Creek? The time we drove out past the white stones and slept under the stars?”

“You made me tell you all their stories,” Michael’s broken voice wobbles, but the panic that flutters beneath the surface is contained for now.

“You remember what you told me?”

Michael shudders in his arms, fresh sobs forcing themselves through the cracks. “The stars always lead you home.”

“You know what got me through my deployment? That night. Your voice. I could look up at the sky and know we were under the same stars. That so long as you were still in the world, life was worth living.”

“It’s not-“

“I know now that we were looking for different things,” Alex says quickly. “I know that the home you’re desperate to find isn’t here. But the universe is the universe. Doesn’t matter what planet you’re on, the stars I’ll be the same. Some things are constant. Nothing, not time, or space, can change them. So you’re gonna open your eyes for me now, Guerin, and you’re gonna look up at the stars. And when the screaming gets too loud, you’re gonna focus on my voice and nothing else.”

Gently, he removes his hand from over Michael’s face. His eyes are already open, turned up to the sky and the blanket of light above their heads.

“Just look at the stars, Guerin. They’re the same stars your mother remembers. They remember how much she loves you, and they’re gonna be there to remind you when it’s too hard to remember it yourself. And if they ever burn out, if the universe comes to an end and everything fades into the dark, I'll still be here.”

“I hated her for not coming for me,” Michael turns his face into Alex's shoulder, clutching him so tightly it leaves bruises and shuddering through his hurt. The sobs that wrack his body are violent and unrelenting, a misery that fear itself to be unending. “She needed me! And I blamed her for abandoning me. I should’ve saved her.”

There’s no one but the stars to see Alex’s tears, and they will keep his secret. “You saved her. Seeing you, after so long? Knowing you were going to live? You saved her the only way you could.”

“She said she loved me,” he sobs.

“Always,” Alex vows, holding on tighter. “The stars know it. I know it. You’re loved, Michael. You’ve always been loved. And you always will be.”

He gets no further answer, no cries of self-hatred and guilt. They'll come again with the dawn, and they'll haunt Michael like a shadow, inescapable and constant. But for now, Alex can shine a light into the darkness and chase them away long enough for Michael to succumb to his exhaustion. He can guard him through the night, and in the morning, he'll do it all over again.


End file.
